Unusual: A dinosaur found intact 110 million years after its disappearance

There is no doubt about it: we found the rest of a dinosaur well petrified and delicately preserved as if it had just disappeared only a few days ago. Discovered six years ago, this fossil is the most impressive one has ever seen before. Even 110 million years after its disappearance, its scales and points have been well preserved and it’s clearly visible.

When I look at him, the more amazing he seems

It was in the laboratory of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, in the Badlands of Alberta in Canada, that the reporter of the National Geographic American, Michael Greshko, had the right to this discovery by interviewing the palaeontologists of the museum. Better yet, the found fossil belongs to a new species of nodosaure, called “ankylosaure”.

According to the American journalist, the found skeleton has nothing to have with a sculpture, but it is a true dinosaur. “At first glance, the assembled gray blocks resemble a 2.7-meter-long dinosaur sculpture, a mosaic of bony armor covering its neck and back, and the gray circles depict individual scales. His neck bends gracefully to the left, as if he were going to reach a tasty plant. But it is not a realistic sculpture. It is a real dinosaur, petrified from the muzzle to the hips. When I look at him, the more it seems amazing, “he explained in his article.

After bringing up the dinosaur

The most amazing thing in the history of this incredible dinosaur is that it remained more than 110 million years hidden in the belly of the earth enclosed in a rock before its discovery by Shawn Funk, using his excavator, on March 21, 2011 while working at a Millennium mine located 676 km from the museum and 27 km from Fort McMurray in Alberta.

For this paleontologist, it is an “encounter with the dragon”, he who thought he was falling on a block of pieces of wood at the beginning before seeing the body – well preserved despite a small broken part – of a powerful herbivore – inevitably the oldest of its kind in the world – that lived in the middle of the cretaceous. Since this discovery, the body of this dinosaur has been delicately restored and analyzed by the museum experts under the guidance of fossil preparer Mark Mitchell.

Having such level of fossilisation that is rare as winning the lotto

When you see it for the first time, you would think that this dinosaur is alive so its fossilisation is of very high level, to believe the palaeontologists of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Moreover, the latter congratulate themselves for having before them an almost complete skeleton of this animal. Other than bones and teeth, museum experts examined the points, scales, eyes, nostrils, skin, crevices and even the rest of a meal found in its intestine.

It’s incredible to say it, but we have the feeling that this dinosaur died only a few days ago. The paleontologist specializing in animal pigmentation, Jakob Vinther, even confirmed it: “The dinosaur is so well preserved that it could have walked a few weeks ago.”

Died by drowning in Florida

What happened then for this dinosaur? How did this large herbivore armed with horns 50 cm long on her shoulders die? There is much speculation, but after a series of research, it is believed that this specimen – which has no club at the end of its tail like the other ankylosaurs – died in a river in a place more like the south of Florida as Canada following a flood.